


013 "flirting"

by wheel_pen



Series: Iron Man AU [13]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fish out of Water, My Pepper is different, Pre-Iron Man, alternative universe, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:30:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little history on his interactions with the opposite sex from Tony, and then the story of the fateful evening he caught Pepper flirting with someone at a party. One cloud of toxic rage, a broken phone, and a few stubbed toes later, Tony is willing to concede that Pepper may flirt with other people—although fortunately she doesn't seem especially interested in it. "I felt the room darken and narrow, until my vision was a tunnel with Pepper at the end of it and no one else who mattered in existence."</p>
            </blockquote>





	013 "flirting"

**Author's Note:**

> 1) My Pepper is very different from canon Pepper. Her personality/origin is very different; to separate her from canon Pepper I've given her a new last name and a different hair color.
> 
> 2) The bad words are censored. That's just how I do things.
> 
> 3) Stories are numbered in the order I wrote them, which isn't necessarily the order in which they occur. At some point I'll post a timeline.
> 
> I wrote this series after the first Iron Man movie came out. It's very AU but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play with these characters.

            I never had a girlfriend. No sisters, no cousins, no female friends, really. Well, I didn't have many friends period, because I was so much smarter than all the other kids my age. At a fairly tender age I was introduced to the more carnal side of femininity by a certain family friend whom I thought was extremely cool at the time, and then I went off to college where I was surrounded by older women who mainly saw me as a novelty, not a potential life partner. By the time I left college—which was also after my parents' deaths—the only way I knew how to relate to women was through sex. I could muddle through alright if the woman was a grandmotherly sort, more likely to pinch the cheeks on my face than anywhere else, but beyond that lay a chasm which I knew only one way to cross. Awkward moments? Slapped faces? Lawsuits threatened? Money lost? Yup, all of the above. Well, not so much with the money, because Obadiah was always keeping an eye on that and would rein me in, redirect me, coach me, whatever the h—l needed to be done so I didn't lose a fat contract or lucrative deal by propositioning someone's wife. On many occasions I considered him a lifesaver. So, in summary, my secretaries were cheek-pinchers, there were board members and executives in my own company I simply wasn't trusted to speak to, and only through a sort of superhuman strength of will I didn't even know I possessed was I able to avoid hitting on my best friend's girlfriend/wife, which was a constant temptation despite the fact we didn't even like each other very much. Pretty much every woman I saw had one and only one purpose, to become a way of pleasantly passing the time for one night, and I don't mean by playing Scrabble.

            Now, I'm not whining about it or anything, I'm just telling you how it was for a long time. And let me add that when one was a brilliant, handsome, charming billionaire, there weren't a lot of women who turned down a proposition.

            But then Pepper came along. Pepper didn't even seem to _notice_ the propositions, let alone accept them. I didn't know if she was a lesbian, mentally challenged, or what, but I finally decided she was just Pepper. She didn't seem to mind when I drooled over her, and she didn't seem to notice when anyone else did. This was fine by me because I became very possessive of Pepper—I'm sure it was quite obvious, but basically, if I couldn't have her I'd make d—n sure no one else could, either. Plenty of people thought I _did_ have her; some people who knew I didn't thought I was just deeply in love with her and didn't know how to express it. All of that was way too simple (and clichéd) to describe the relationship Pepper and I had. The only thing I clearly understood was that if I pushed too hard for a physical relationship, everything else we had—friendship, professional partnership, emotional connection—would all crumble to dust, and I had far too few functional relationships of any kind to risk that.

            I could still have sex with whomever I wanted. Because I didn't really care about them, anyway.

            Pepper didn't get the same courtesy, though.

            We were at a party one night, a mixer for a bunch of business-types. I'd had a few drinks and was chatting up a curvy brunette at the bar. In my mind we were already in bed. H—l, in my mind we'd already _been_ to bed, she'd left the next morning, and I was now calling the redhead who'd slipped me her digits a few minutes ago. And people said I couldn't plan ahead.

            Periodically I glanced around the room, on the off chance something better came along. I had made pretty certain that I was already putting the moves on the hottest available woman in the place, but you never knew who might wander in. It wasn't like I needed all my wits to keep up with our scintillating conversation, anyway.

            That was when I caught sight of Pepper. She was pretty good at parties, really, tended to eat a lot and drift around the room networking on a basic level—she remembered everyone she'd met and what they'd told her, which came in very handy when there was some kind of production crisis and only _she_ knew where to find a few more tons of titanium alloy. Right now, in fact, she was talking to a bookish fellow who had eschewed the traditional tux for khakis and a tweed blazer—I was guessing he was an eco-nut agonizing over the fortune he'd made selling recycled goods to guilted companies. Probably a wasted five minutes on Pepper's part, I thought, because while I was quite pleased with the alternative energy source I'd designed for our main offices, I had no intention of switching the company dining room to plates and forks made of biodegradable potato flakes.

            Then I saw Pepper laugh.

            I had to see it, not hear it, because I wouldn't have recognized her laugh by sound alone—Pepper didn't laugh. A small smile, on occasion, when I said something really hilarious. But never a laugh.

            The green bean said something else and Pepper laughed again. And touched his hand.

            By now I was losing even the microscopic fiber of conversation I'd been having with the brunette. Not that I cared, because this was far more serious (and I could always get another hot brunette). Pepper didn't _like_ touching people. Except me, of course. But no one else.

            The geek she was with seemed to be enjoying it. Why wouldn't he? She was wearing a little sparkly black dress and her hair was down, and if she could manage to act like a normal human being for five minutes there wasn't a straight man in the room who wouldn't fall all over himself trying to be the one she flirted with.

            Flirting.

            Pepper was flirting with him.

            Pepper was flirting with someone who wasn't me.

            I felt the room darken and narrow, until my vision was a tunnel with Pepper at the end of it and no one else who mattered in existence. I was so furious in that instant, if my gaze had been a poison dart she'd be clutching the side of her neck and crumpling to the ground by now. As it was she sensed my attention and looked over at me questioningly, in case I wanted something.

            I did want something. I wanted to commit an act of violence upon that other man, to gore him with a tusk or rip his throat out with my teeth. Something base and instinctive and savage.

            I pushed away from the bar without even noticing, completely ignoring the brunette, and Pepper's eyes widened a little. She made some excuse to the dead man walking and met me halfway across the room, stopping me bodily in my tracks.

            My focus shifted entirely to her but my mood didn't improve. No point in mentioning I'd had a few more drinks that were necessary socially; that was a given. But I couldn't imagine the feelings would have been any less intense sober. If anything all the Scotch was probably blunting them.

            I wanted to burn her to the ground where she stood, and not in a pleasurable way, either. I settled for grabbing her hand and dragging her through the crowd and out the door, displacing people as I went. Of course Pepper was a consummate professional; I heard her talking behind me and ignored it, but by the time we got to the building's driveway there was Happy with the car.

            I opened the door before he could even get out and not-so-gently made sure Pepper was contained within the vehicle. Then I climbed in myself and slammed the door. " _Home, Mr. Stark?_ " Happy asked over the intercom.

            "F—k if I care," I growled.

            "Yes, please, Mr. Hogan," Pepper confirmed before cutting the connection.

            My fury filled the spacious backseat, nearly smothering me like some kind of toxic fume; but Pepper didn't seem bothered by it. She just sat there poking at her phone, always working, always busy. Her apparent indifference enraged me further and I suddenly snatched the phone from her hands, flinging it as hard as I could against the opposite door.

            I was hoping to see it shatter, but let's face it, it was pretty tough plastic and not a lot of room to build up momentum. My only pay-off was a semi-satisfying thunk (I did have to buy her a new phone the next day, though). Pepper glanced down at the now-darkened screen and said nothing, just tucked the useless stylus away in case my next move was to gouge her eyes out with it. Then she folded her hands in her lap and stared out the window.

            I couldn't take it. I just couldn't take it anymore, the silence that was roiling with tension only because of me. We might have just been on a pleasant outing to the park, to look at _her_.

            I jammed the intercom button down. "Pull over!" I ordered.

            " _Uh, sir?_ "

            "Pull over, g-------t!"

            Fortunately we'd left the city and were on one of the winding rural roads that eventually led home, so I didn't leap out of the car into the middle of traffic. Instead it was a deserted, narrow road with cracked pavement and a rocky shoulder. I started walking the same direction we'd been driving, listening to the crash of the waves in the distance and kicking stones our of my way (usually after tripping over them first).

            After a moment Pepper appeared on the road, a little bit behind and to one side. I ignored her. For a few minutes we walked in silence, our path illuminated by the car headlights as Happy crept slowly up behind us. I hoped she would get cold, or her feet would start to hurt in those sky-high heels, and she would give up following me. But this was Pepper; of course she stuck with me.

            After a little while the cool breeze off the ocean calmed my temper somewhat and I heaved a sigh. Recognizing my change in mood Pepper stepped up beside me and wrapped her arm around mine.

            "So who was that guy you were talking to?" I asked a moment later, so terribly casual.

            "Marcus Weldon," she informed me. "He owns a company that produces a biodegradable plastic that can withstand high heat and pressure." Could I call it or what? "I thought you might be interested in it."

            Of course. Even when she was flirting with a guy, Pepper chose him for his usefulness to _me_. "Was he… _nice_?" I pressed, feeling incredibly lame.

            She shrugged against me. "I guess."

            "Well, you seemed to enjoy talking to him." It was difficult to keep the bitterness out of my tone, but I managed. For the most part.

            "I don't think he would have told me the preliminary numbers for their latest stress tests otherwise," she answered, sounding confused by my idiocy. "If I didn't seem to enjoy talking to him, I mean."

            A secret, selfish sense of relief trickled through me, which I hoped wasn't too obvious. "Pepper," I tutted. "Flirting with someone to get insider information? That's not very nice."

            "I was experimenting with a new form of social interaction," she explained. "It's very common." In Pepper's world this made perfect sense. 

            "Yes, well… Don't—erm—don't do it again, okay?" I didn't think my nerves could handle it. "Unless you want to. For—um—personal reasons, I mean. Not for business." I forced myself to offer her that option, though the words had to be wrenched from my throat.

            "Oh. Okay," Pepper agreed, seemingly oblivious to my internal struggle. "It was kind of weird for me anyway."

            My heart soared. "Well, it takes years to master the art of flirtation, Pepper," I assured her with great superiority. "And some people just aren't made for it at all. You, for example. You might hurt yourself or something."

            "You're probably right, sir."

            I was starting to notice the chill in the air more now, since there wasn't a lump of fury burning in my heart. "So are we almost home or what? Isn't it right around this bend?"

            "Around the bend, and about ten miles," Pepper informed me.

            "Oh. Let's get back in the car, then."

            "Yes, sir."

* * *


End file.
